Can someone tell me if the loans will pay for the students off campus rent?
If you borrow enough money that you get a refund, you can use that money (once the refund is released to you) for room and board (including off-campus rent), books, and other educational expenses. You can check with your college’s student bill system at the business office to see when your student loan refund should come in. Bear in mind of course that you will only get a refund after the college’s bill has been satisfied.
Maybe…but more likely not.
Much depends on the type of aid you get. Your loans may already be dedicated towards tuition. And your loans won’t be for a lot of money anyway.
When I got grants and loans (I went back to college just a few years ago), they were awarded on a semester basis. I could borrow up to $5,000 per semester. Between my grants and loans, after paying tuition and fees I usually got about $3,000 to $4,000 in cash each semester, which paid rent or other expenses.
Scholarships are generally used first for tuition. Then grants. If that covers all of your expenses, you even get some of the grants back in cash. It was usually enough (barely) for me to pay for books.
It all depends on how much your college costs, and how far in debt you are willing to go for living expenses. My daughter plans to take an on-campus job instead of loans, maybe working in the library.
Any federal money you get, most loans, will go to your school’s bursar’s office, to your account and any direct billed items will be taken out of that money before you see any of it. Each school has its own way of giving out excess funds. Usually you dont get the money for a few weeks after the term has started. Some schools won’t release until after the drop date, and you have to go through a process to get the funds.
What is the situation? Is your tuition and fees already covered by grants or payments? Are you just starting college or already in?
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. I could borrow up to $5,000 per semester.
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You were an independent student (over age 24), so you were allowed to borrow MUCH more.
If this student is 18ish, then she won’t be able to borrow that much. And, we don’t know if the $5500 she can borrow PER YEAR will already be going towards tuition.
@karlammccu, if you’re asking if you are allowed to use your federal student loans for off-campus housing, the answer is yes. But as all the others have said here, your school’s bursar’s office will first use your loans to pay your tuition, fees, and any other direct billed items that are on your account each semester. If any of those loan amounts are leftover after your student bills (tuition, fees, direct-billed meal plans, etc) are paid, then yes, you can use them to pay for off-campus housing.
We don’t know your exact situation or what types of loans you’ll have. If you’re a dependent student who receives unsubsidized federal student loans, max amounts are $5500 (first year), $6500 (second year), and $7500 (third year and beyond) up to a maximum of $31,000. That’s not a whole lot of money considering what college costs today.
However, if you have huge scholarships, then it’s possible that you will get to use your federal student loans to pay for your off-campus housing.
Explanation by way of example:
As an undergrad, one of my kids had a full-tuition scholarship, plus a few other scholarships on top of that. He lived on campus the first two years. He still took out the max federal student loans all four years.
Here’s how the whole thing worked:
(This is all commonplace.) Just prior to the beginning of each semester, all of his tuition, fees, dorm room, meal plans, and sometimes even books, were billed to his student account. The bursar’s office then applied all of his scholarships to his account, which brought his balance down significantly. Then, when his federal student loans came in, they were applied to his account, which brought his balance down even more.
There were never any loan amounts leftover those first two years. In fact, he (we) had to come up with additional money to pay for what was still due on his bill. See? He had the standard unsubsidized federal loan amount for freshmen – which works out to $2750 per semester. $2750 does not go far towards housing and meals for an entire semester!
He moved to off-campus housing his last two years of undergrad. At that time, I had the same question as you. Can he use federal loan amounts to pay for off-campus housing? I didn’t know if it was even allowed or if any money that was leftover after paying student bills (through the bursar’s office) would come to him or if it would go back to the federal government. I just didn’t know. I was new to all of this.
Anyway, as a junior and senior, he was receiving the standard amount of $7500 per year in unsubsidized federal student loans. He was also living off-campus. Naturally, off-campus housing is not included on a student’s university bill, and his on-campus meal plan was much cheaper those two years because he had his own kitchen and could prepare his own food. So now his student bill included just tuition and fees (which were covered by his full-tuition scholarship), a small meal plan for the occasional meal (which was covered by his additional scholarships), and books that he direct-billed to his student account (which were partially covered by his remaining scholarships).
So, sure enough, there came a time that his federal student loans were disbursed to him without any remaining balance on his student bill, and at that point, he could use them to pay for his off-campus housing.
Just like before, prior to each semester, all of his tuition, fees, mini-meal plans, and books were billed to his student account. Then, the bursar’s office applied all of his scholarships to those billed amounts. And at that point, all of his student bills were paid. When his federal student loans came in and were likewise applied to his student account, it was already paid in full. So, the student loan amounts were directed to my son’s bank account as part of the school’s “refund” process. Once they were in his bank account, he relied on them to pay his monthly off-campus rent.
I hope this long explanation of the process was somehow helpful to you. I’m not sure if this is the question you were asking, but it’s the question I had many years ago. Good luck! 